Known for her unprofessional looking choreography and lethargy, this 5'7" German beauty did not translate her physical beauty to attractive skating. Thanks to the era of figures and her determination to try triples, she pulled off a pair of World silver medals six years apart. Skating to Germanic sounding booming soundtracks, disco, or corny American folk music, she did not do much on the ice, but sometimes pulled off a triple flip and triple loop.

Kira Ivanova - Soviet Union (Russia)
1985 Worlds Silver

According to Peggy Flemming, Ivanova's figures weren't that great. Notwithstanding Peggy's opinion, the judges liked her tracings, and in that era this could guarantee you skated in the final group of six.

Dick Button said of her in 1984, "You know, I hate to say this, but personally for me this girl has absolutely no sparkle, very little choreographic interest, and I have very little enthusiasm for her technique. And one of the other things, I guess to put the finishing touches on it, like many Soviet skaters, her boots aren't very white."

Surya Bonnaly - France
1993, '94 & '95 Worlds Silver

What more can be said about Surya Bonnaly's technique? In 1992 Nancy Kerrigan's coach, Evy Scotvold, said: "Surya cannot skate. All she can do is move from triple jump to triple jump." In the shadow of Ito and Harding, and with Europe having no other horse, moving from triple jump to triple jump was enough to win Surya three world silver medals.

Carolina Kostner - Italy
2005 Worlds Bronze

Now the 2012 world champion is not today thought of as an over scored fluke. But in 2005, some people had a different take on the long legged Italian. Some Kwan (and other) fans complained that her bronze at the worlds in Moscow was an injustice. Unflattering things were said and written about how she dressed, her choreography, and how incompetent the judges were for overlooking her ice splat.

Fumie Suguri
2002 & '03 Worlds Bronze
2006 Worlds Silver

With her personal decisions to continue skating under scrutiny, this is not the nicest time to nominate Fumie for such a distinction. I believe she deserved all her world medals. However, there was buzz at 2003 Worlds that she was over scored and undeserving of status as a multiple-time podium finisher. In all likelihood, this talk was from biased Americans (favoring Sasha Cohen), but it is arguably true that Fumie did not skate particularly well in Washington, D.C.

Kimmie Meissner
2006 Worlds Gold

With propeller arms, Meissner flapped her way to a world title in 2006. Most of us agree that Kimmie was a great competitor who belonged in the top six, but more than enough people I know still scratch their heads when they remember she is also the 2006 world champion.

Elena Sokolova
2003 Worlds Silver

She attempted triple-triple combinations at 2003 worlds, but some spectators and former competitors commented that she was too lackluster artistically to be a medalist. The judging system used at the 2003 Worlds was the most secretive, broken, and cryptic ever. This probably gave rise to conspiracy theories that may or may not have been valid.

Laura Lepistö
2010 Worlds Bronze

This lovely Finn did relatively little jump content at the Vancouver Olympics but still beat the USA national champ Rachael Flatt. This naturally started talk in USA quarters about how over scored Ms. Lepistö was. When she got the bronze at the following worlds, this time beating the former world champion Miki Ando, Lepistö's lighter jump difficulty got further negative attention.

Lol like moving from triple jump to triple jump should have been some kind of disqualifier for medals! Go surya!!! So deserved those medals and more like winning in 1994. So unique and such a presence! Few more unique and special!

As the terms you used were least deserving I dont think any of those ladies besides Lepisto at the 2010 Worlds are good poll options. All others deserved the medals they won those years. Kwan was completely lackluster at the 2005 Worlds with COP unfriendly programs to boot, so I dont get the few who try and argue she was robbed of anything there, even if Kostner wasnt a great skater at that point. Besides Lepisto at the 2010 Worlds my other choices would be:

Holly Cook 1990 Worlds- totally gifted even in lackluster event. Nothing about her free skating was better than Lebedeva, Neske, Grossmann, Yamaguchi, and Lebedeva and Neske were ahead of her in figures too.

Witt 1982 Worlds- her LP scores for a poor skate were a joke and she should not have pulled up to win any medal, let alone silver.

Soldatova 1999 Worlds- propped up with the help of the Russian fed. Thank goodness she fell in her free skate, I am certain she would have won silver otherwise. Malinina who really should have won the silver was pushed off the podium altogether. To her credit this was one of her best competitions ever, but even at close to her best simply a mediocre skater in everyway- smallish jumps, terrible choreography, herky jerky movements all over the place, wobbly spins, childish music and look on the ice.

Kwan 1999 Worlds- her silver at this event was as big a gift as Soldatova's bronze was. Her short program sucked and should have been about 8th. Her long program was also generously scored to be 2nd in that phase given the quality of the skates that day, even though it wasnt totally bad (although still very subpar for Kwan standards). The podium after Butyrskaya should have been some combination of Malinina, Gusermoli, and Rechnio this year without question.

Kerrigan 1992 Worlds- silver was a farce for her performances at this event. Chen and Hubert should have been the other medalists. Clearly a reputation medal, nothing else. One judge even had her 1st for her meltdown long program over Yamaguchi who had one of the best performances of her career.

Kostner 2008 Worlds- This was the farce medal of her career, not the 2005 Worlds. Made mistakes on 5 jump elements and still nearly won the World title, and edged pre event favorite Kim whose only mistakes was a triple lutz singling in both programs for silver, and pushing an inspiring Nakano off the podium. Even the European crowd was jeering this result.

As the only great option that is even on the poll is Lepisto of course I voted for her.

The judging at 1992 Worlds along with the skating was so fun and wild it is almost hilarious. Are the scores and ordinals posted somewhere? My favorite is how the judges suddenly decided to give Surya, the European Champion, a bunch of last place ordinals!

Soldatova 1999 Worlds- propped up with the help of the Russian fed. Thank goodness she fell in her free skate, I am certain she would have won silver otherwise. Malinina who really should have won the silver was pushed off the podium altogether. To her credit this was one of her best competitions ever, but even at close to her best simply a mediocre skater in everyway- smallish jumps, terrible choreography, herky jerky movements all over the place, wobbly spins, childish music and look on the ice.
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Soldatova really belongs up there as a nominee. She was even worse when she came back skating for Belarus.

The spirit of what I'm going for is just a world medalist who lots of people thought bland and wished they had never even seen, let alone seen walk away with a medal.

The judging at 1992 Worlds along with the skating was so fun and wild it is almost hilarious. I wish the scores and ordinals were posted somewhere. My favorite is how the judges suddenly decided to give Surya, the European Champion, a bunch of last place ordinals!

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The judges were telling Surya to fix herself or to retire. She took the hint and came back a much improved skater in 1993.

They should have done the same to Kerrigan, and then maybe the meltdown at the 93 Worlds wouldnt have happened. After being given medals for crappy performances at Worlds and Olympics in 91 and 92, and winning the 93 Nationals with incredible ease for another lame performance, it probably gave her the impression all she had to do was wait for Kristi to quit and she would be coronated all the big titles with just a few landed triples. Boy was she in for the shock of her life come Prague Worlds when the final flight were all laying down 6 or 7 triples and she had to take the ice as the leader.

Kwan 1999 Worlds- her silver at this event was as big a gift as Soldatova's bronze was. Her short program sucked and should have been about 8th. Her long program was also generously scored to be 2nd in that phase given the quality of the skates that day, even though it wasnt totally bad (although still very subpar for Kwan standards). The podium after Butyrskaya should have been some combination of Malinina, Gusermoli, and Rechnio this year without question.

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Gusmeroli's jewel thief program was so cheesetastic and unclean, and I think it should have been a prop rule violation. That you could compare Kwan's 99 FS unfavorably with that casts a little doubt on your skating taste.

She may not have been the best overall skater that night, but Kimmie's long program blew everyone else's way by like 56 miles. She was clearly, without a doubt, the deserving winner that night, and her program was absolutely wonderful, which is more than I can say for some of the people judgejudy in particular wrote about.

Kostner most definitely deserved her bronze medal in 2005! Kwan just had too many mistakes at her last Worlds from her uninspiring QR to her flawed LP; her SP was great though. It really appeared Michelle was just over-thinking the whole COP concept and she seemed to completely lose her love and joy for skating. Sadly, the only time I liked her Bolero program was its first outing at the opening season cheesefest when she skated it the best.

Kostner 2008 Worlds- This was the farce medal of her career, not the 2005 Worlds. Made mistakes on 5 jump elements and still nearly won the World title, and edged pre event favorite Kim whose only mistakes was a triple lutz singling in both programs for silver, and pushing an inspiring Nakano off the podium. Even the European crowd was jeering this result.

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Yu-Na actually fell in the SP at those Worlds on the 3Lutz in the SP relegating her to 5th place in that segment. In the LP, she singled a Lutz and had a wobbly landing on a 3Salchow, but she did manage to win the LP segment, and finished 3rd overall. Kostner rotated 7 triples in the LP, albeit 4 jumping passes did receive -GOE, while Kim rotated 5 triples and did receive -GOE for the 3Salchow she struggled to land. Yu-Na won the LP and Carolina finished 3rd in that segment. Kostner unquestionably had the more difficult technical content between the two I think. Caro attempted all the triples minus the Axel and rotated all of her triples, which is extremely important to do under COP, while Yu-Na per usual omitted the 3loop and singled a jump, which is a huge mistake under COP. Nakano had many times in her career been faulted for UR'ing jumps, so it wasn't the biggest surprise to me that she was faulted for it again at those Worlds, no matter how clean her program may have appeared to be on the surface. You sort of have to wait and see what the judges are going to do with her jumps as she had a tendency to finish the rotation on the ice.

Oh my goodness. These tall Germanic ladies never trained much in free skating. She is better than Claudia Leistner in the grace department, but check out those jumps. Worst air position ever. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1atF99Om0o
Claudia Kristofics-Binder - 1981 World Championships FS

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Claudia Kristofics-Binder was actually not a German, but an Austrian Skater.  I think the last one to medal at a major event.

When voting I was torn between Claudia Leistner, Surya Bonaly and Kimmie Meissner, but finally my vote went to Claudia Leister as I didnt remember her performances at all. After watching the linked clips I know why - her programmes

One remark on this poll in general: personally I have nothing against expressing which skaters you like and on the opposite also which you like less and which not, as long as critics don't get rude. But Id really wish the next to last poll option (Some other awful or mediocre lady competitor) could be changed, as it implies that any skater mentioned on this poll is awful / mediocre, which I feel is pretty harsh.

Gusmeroli's jewel thief program was so cheesetastic and unclean, and I think it should have been a prop rule violation. That you could compare Kwan's 99 FS unfavorably with that casts a little doubt on your skating taste.

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Medals are not just decided by the free skate. I would have had Gusmeroli 2nd or 3rd in the SP (along with Rechnio) and Kwan only 8th. Had that happened Kwan could have beaten Gusmeroli by 2 or 3 spots in the LP and still not beaten her overall. Even the U.S media were outraged Kwan was 4th in the SP, and rightfully so. The 5.5s she got for required elements for her short program performance from some judges were as big a crock as the few 5.8s Soldatova got for presentation.

By the way: I looks like this poll might be interpreted in two ways - the title is about the least appealing skater (= not such a great skater who might have won a medal well deserved that event, but e.g. in a weak field and with a skate which might not have earned a placement anywhere close to a medal in any other year) or from the headline of the poll the least deserving medalist, which I understand as a skater who didn't deserve a medal at the actual event due to bad judging, etc.

My take was that this poll is about the least appealing skater. But when I now see a lot of discussion on judging and deserved placements in the actual events, I guess I'm in the minority?